I've always had this suspicion that open source software is some kind of propaganda, that it's not purely organic. The work is hard, the benefits are huge, yet

I've always had this suspicion that open source software is some kind of propaganda, that it's not purely organic. The work is hard, the benefits are huge, yet the contributors are paid zilch. If I were a big company I would for sure want to win "the hearts of engineers" as you say, to sway them to contribute software critical to my needs, and to pay nothing for it.